Activision Says That Call Of Duty Won’t Buckle Like Guitar Hero Did

In February this year, CEO Eric Hirshberg of Activision asked the question: “Isn’t Call of Duty today just like Guitar Hero was a few years back?” in a leaked internal memo. The memo then circulated around Activision about the same time that the company planned to shelf the Guitar Hero franchise.

“This is a great question and one we have thought about a lot,” said Hirshberg. And then, he went on to explain why Call of Duty will not suffer the same fate as Guitar Hero.

But there are several key differences between the two franchises worth considering. Guitar Hero quickly reached incredible heights, but then began a steady decline. Call of Duty, on the other hand, has steadily grown every single year of its seven-year existence.

Guitar Hero was a new genre which had incredible appeal, but which had not stood the test of time. Call of Duty exists in a genre–first person shooters–that has shown remarkable staying power and wide appeal over a period of decades. Plus, Call of Duty has inspired a massive, persistent, online community of players, making it perhaps the ‘stickiest’ game of all time.

If you really step back and dispassionately look at any measurement-sales, player engagement, hours of online play, performance of DLC-you can absolutely conclude that the potential for this franchise has never been greater.

In order to achieve this potential, we need to focus: on making games that constantly raise the quality bar; on staying ahead of the innovation curve; on surrounding the brand with a suite of services and an online community that makes our fans never want to leave. Entertainment franchises with staying power are rare. But Call of Duty shows all of the signs of being able to be one of them. It’s up to us.

Activision will continue to pimp out Call of Duty — and that’s okay. But, are you going keep coming back, paying for more each time?

My greatest gripe with the Call of Duty series now is that they’ve mainstream-marketed it, and all power to them, it is a cash-cow of note, but gone are the days of the true bliss and joy felt from the first Call of Duty, and the second. Hell even the third (CoD4 that is) was amazing.

Sure WaW, MW2 and BLOPS were cool games, but they lacked that distinct CoD air about them. They were action titles before being actual war-shooters where you were a part of a squadron with no soldier’s life greater than the other’s.

I’m still a fan and will still play the games (perhaps that’s the problem?) but I see the dark road that CoD is headed down and I hope and pray that it doesn’t go too far down…

That said, awesome series of note for bringing gaming to a wider audience and therefore upping the numbers of new gamers per year.